The transcript submitted is based on a recording taken while waiting for the bus on Barkers Road. It was an afternoon and the conversation was between Ruby, Victoria, Brigitte, Callan and myself. The conversation is reasonably straightforward in meaning but often difficult to understand. Situational Context: As stated, the recording took place at the Barkers Road bus bay. This is a reasonably public place, although it mainly consists of school students. The conversation is representative of this. Firstly, the topic is nothing that can be considered either offensive or too personal to be overheard.
It also doesn’t consist of any swearing or derogatory terms with “donk” being the only insult made. 51. R Obviously it would be ba=d << if he die=d () yoru donk! Despite the conversation being basic’ in terms of depth, it still remains authentic in content. It is definitely a conversation that has not been altered based on the recording. Identifying Participants: In reviewing the transcript different features allow an idea to be established about different members of the group. Relationships, gender, age and personality can all be theorized based on the content within the transcript
The relationship between the participants is disclosed from the opening of the conversation. The topic of conversation being set as TV shows immediately allows individuals to make suggestions and to be either supported or questioned in these suggestions. The participant’s ability to make judgement on others identifies a comfort. All members of the conversation can be assumed as familiar as there is no hesitation in being sceptical of each other. 6. B[But it sucked] 7. VTeen Wolf 8. CHow good is it? \ This snippet shows the freedom to make both positive and negative comments.
In lines 49 and 50 it can be interpreted that Brigitte or “B” and Victoria or “V” are females. 49. V That would’ve been SO== bad if he died I’d of actually [crie=d] 50. B [Yeah I want] to cry now The use of crying as a reaction, can be characterized as stereotypical feminine reaction. Whereas males, generally, would tend to disassociate themselves with crying due to the classification of crying being a feminine response. Several characteristics show features common across the group. The use of discourse particles is a unique feature of teenage speech and younger generations.
Within the transcript discourse particles are used frequently. In line 11 “V” uses 3 discourse particles. 11. V>> But like except [/I’ve only got like 2 episodes -] “But like except” Is a perfect example of discourse particles, the phrase would usually be considered illogical and ambiguous when combined like this. However, to our generation it is easily interpreted as somebody holding of attention while working through their train of thought. The content within the conversation itself identifies age of participants. “Teen Wolf” is the centre of discussion. This TV show first aired in 2011.
In knowing this alone, anybody born near or post 2005 is most likely too young for the show. It is also unlikely that with a target audience of teens, there will be much of an audience over 30 either. The personalities of different identities are also determinable to some extent. Callan or “C” can be noted as humorous in his sarcastic comments. Contrastingly Ruby or “R” is focused on providing a genuine platform for Victoria to view “Teen Wolf”. (Please Note: The exert from below has been modified within this analysis to become a singular conversation rather than the two concurrent conversations that appear in the transcript.
18. RWhy don’t you watch it on Putlocker actually? / 20. CNO 21. RWhy [not? \] 22. C [Cause it’s] illegal \People work hard >> to make those shows 23. RWhat do your watch it on? 25. C [:Pu=tlocker:] Callan’s intent to be funny is evident, as in line 20, he deliberately exaggerates the “NO” to draw Ruby’s attention, in line 22 it is a sarcastic comment about the implications of piracy and then in line 25 he deprecates himself by revealing the hypocrisy of his entire point. Ruby on the other hand, her response expresses a genuine interest as to why “Putlocker” isn’t an alternative, demonstrating her to be a genuine person ith pure intentions. Features and Strategies of Spoken Discourse: Obviously several features have been touched on through the identifying participants section. These have been “Discourse Particles” which are used to add to a sentence without pausing or changing the meaning of a sentence. Conversations generally follow a pattern of turns.
This strategy allows all members of the conversation to contribute. This can often be thrown out by an individual holding the floor. For a period of time Victoria holds the floor and dominates the conversation, as she is the one manoeuvring the conversations idea. 5. VYeah but season 6/ I don’t know where to watch it. 16. V It’s no(,)t (. ) I looked on >>MTV a=nd Fox 8. And [its=] This contribution changes the direction of the topic to how to watch the next season of “Teen Wolf”. This is an essential part to keeping any conversation alive and it is because of Victoria having a problem that she holds the floor. Pauses are used to change ideas as someone speaks, without giving up their turn in the conversation. As seen in line 13. Victoria manages to make 3 minor points due to the pauses 13.
V/Hey hey (,) V only have 2 episodes left (,) then season 6 starts/ Prosodic features of pace, pitch and rhythm are all used to evoke interest in what is being said. This is seen in line 26. Victoria uses pauses to build up to emphasizing Dylan O’Brien and then speeds up with the less interesting information. 26. V Cause there was news (,) that (1) Dylan O=’Brien might not be >> back on the show False starts occur when a member of the conversation begins speaking but realizes that their statement will not have sufficient impact on the conversation.
This can then either lead to a change in idea from that individual or a loss of turn to another individual. 19. B>>They Probably Line 19 is a false start from Brigitte. She then loses her turn in the conversation and must continue her idea later in line 24. Another feature is repetition. Repetition is used to show the significance of certain statements. In line 12 Brigitte uses the phrase “love not like, love” which accentuates her love for “Teen Wolf’ 12. B [Lo=ve not like, lo=ve. ] Difficulties: There were several difficulties experienced in converting the recording into a transcript.
The audio quality was poor, as a result of background noises created by cars and wind as well as the positioning of people around the microphone. For example, Brigitte sounds particularly loud in the recording and this is due to her proximity to the microphone rather than necessarily a result of her speech intonation. This can be seen in line 9. 9. B>> I love \TEEN WOLF The “I love” is actually significantly louder than most other things said within the recorded conversation, however the intention was not for this to be significantly louder, so I have transcribed it how it was intended.
The positioning combined with the outside noise making occasional statements inaudible. In line 2 Ruby’s statement is unable to be heard clearly and I was left with 3 different ideas on what she might have said. It would be inaccurate to write an incorrect guess so as a result the phrase had to be left as an inaudible sound. 2. R(word) (xxx) On occasion there were multiple conversations going on at once. This made it extremely difficult to understand what was happening without being present for the original conversation.
The lines 2-7 show this. 2. R(word) (xxxx) 3. Bl[watched it for a few episodes] 4. V [>>You know what I watch? /] 5. C[What/] 6. B[But it sucked] 7. VTeen Wolf As seen in the exert from the transcript, the lines in bold are a conversation taking place between Ruby and Brigitte, whereas simultaneously in italics, another conversation is taking place between Victoria and Callan. Although these conversations eventually combine into a single conversation, the transcript can appear illogical in parts due to the split conversation. This provided a major difficulty in transcribing the conversation.
The largest issue was overlapping speech. This was problematic, both in deciphering what was said and in the ordering of the ments. If they are spoken at the same time who should be placed first? To decipher what was said the only option was to continually listen and re-listen to the phrase, which gradually became clearer. When deciding who deserved to go first I took into consideration the statement itself, who had more impact with their statement? In lines 33-34, Ruby is given priority as she emphasizes the word “stunt” compared to Victoria who simply states the word 33. R[Stu=nt] 34.
V[Stunt] Conclusion: Within any conversation speech is manipulated and every conversation has a unique set of characteristics. These can be the situation that it takes place in, the ages, genders and personalities of individuals and features of spoken discourse. A transcript is a representation of real speech and aims to incorporate as many characteristics to give an authentic recording of a conversation. My recording and transcript are not dissimilar to any other conversation and shows an unaffected conversation unfolding at a bus stop, while teenagers go about their daily routine.